4 Answers
4

You're right I just played with trying to set a Dropbox image as my wallpaper, and can't believe that there isn't an easier way. Part of the problem seems to be that if you Open a dropbox image, it isn't sent to the Gallery or the system default image viewer (which would let you do things like set as wallpaper) but Dropbox uses its own (HTML?) viewer.

There are feature requests in Dropbox's "Votebox" that are requesting features that would fix this. It's probably worth heading over there and letting them know that you'd like this feature, this option looks like the most likely (but you can just go to Votebox and search for Android to see all the relevant ones):

Update: If you download photos from Dropbox, they do appear in the gallery in a folder called "Photos". Now that they're in the Gallery, you can set them as wallpaper the same as normal. You might need to force the media scanner to start before they'll show up in the gallery, this previous question has options for forcing that to run.

TUrns out that when you download an image from your Dropbox it's saved into your gallery, but only the android gallery and not the cooliris gallery app
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DavidYellFeb 7 '11 at 15:37

Aah, that's odd. I wasn't seeing any of them in the Gallery while I was testing, but I can now, in their own "Photos" folder. I did reboot my phone over the weekend, so I wonder if that kicked the gallery into finding them?
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GAThrawnFeb 7 '11 at 16:19

How exactly do you "Download"? I don't see that option anywhere from a long or short press.
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MichaelAug 15 '14 at 22:21

When I select an image from Dropbox, it opens to be viewed. Then if I press and hold the image, I'm given the option to Open, Download, Share or Delete the image. If I choose Open, the image opens in a view similar to the Gallery in which I can press menu, then Set as and finally, Wallpaper.

This still requires several steps but you never have to actually download the image from Dropbox.

Press and hold only gives me "Share", "Favorite", "Delete", "Rename", "Move" and "Export" none of which have the desired effect. There is no "Open" or "Download" option. Now what?
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MichaelAug 15 '14 at 22:24

Open dropbox view camera uploads press circled arrow of chosen pic, select more, then select open with, choose 'gallery' wait for jpg to open then press your own phone menu button ( in samsung bottom left corner) select set as then proceed for wallpaper or home screen. :)